Autopsy Toothless Bulldogs overcome Norf in a game not for the ages

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Sanders got 20 touches for the fifth time in his career on the weekend.

He's tracking far better than other top 15 selection midfielders that others don't seem to be so worried about, (McKenzie, Hobbs, Tsatas, Phillipou, Erasmus etc.

It's a good sign that in his first year he's being trusted to play meaningful midfield minutes, and understands how to play that role that he know how to get his hands on it. There's plenty of players that look skilled and look like they can play a variety of roles but just seem to disappear in games and don't seem to have value despite looking good early in their career, even if they don't get their hands on the footy a lot. (looking at my favourite example of everyone's I-rate-him first-year player, Lukas Webb, who many would have predicted would have played 100+ games for us at stages within his first 10 games for us).

The range of future outcomes is still massive than him. After year one, it looked like Josh Ward was the star and Finn Callaghan was not. Flipped on its head.

All we can ask is for Sanders to continue to establish himself in the best 22 and offer positive value, and develop his game. Not every player is going to be a star or even get 50 Brownlow votes.

Lots can play out whether it's a good pick or not. Plenty of Dogs fans e.g. wrote of Farren Ray early in his career. In the end, after he went to Saints and North, he turned out to be one of the better players from an exceptionally weak 2003 draft class, as one of only 11 players to play 200 games. While he only got 9 career Brownlow votes - and I honestly expect Sanders to get more - in retrospect, the Ray pick was fine, as discounting mature agers/father sons that were unavaliable, only six players drafted after Ray got more Brownlow votes in their career than him.
 
Sanders will be a better player aged 21 & 23. That's all I care about. Anything we get now is a bonus. He's no shrinking violet so he just needs a few preaseaons and more confidence in himself.

As threenewpadlocks said weve got the habit on this board of overrating some players in their first year, but writing off others before the age of 23.

Williams and Dale would have been traded or desisted had some had their way.

(Mind you the calls to trade Daniek while he had currency had merit , we'd not get a handful of jelly beans now)
 
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BrisDog said:
He is quite slow unfortunately - no chasing down blokes for Sanders.
Click to expand...
No need to chase when you already have the pill.
 
Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...
1719836763086.jpeg 1719836840861.jpeg
It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?
 
dogwatch said:
Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...
View attachment 2036390 View attachment 2036393
It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?
Click to expand...

Sitting up high on L3 for the first time in several years, it's more noticeable that both Freijah and Lobb have a stooped posture when running. Maybe that lab beneath VUWO run by Zimmer has had a few glitches when players have been booked in for their logbook 'service'...? 🤔
 
dogwatch said:
Finally got to view the game.

Bont was at his imperious best, even with a bad back. Why Clarko didn't tag him has me puzzled, even acknowledging the good season Treloar has had. Maybe he thinks he's untaggable?

Agree that JUH's game was pretty good. Dropped four marks that you'd expect a player of his skills to take, all within kicking range. Could easily have had 4-5 goals. Some days are like that.

Impressed with Vandermeer's game but just couldn't squeeze him into my top 5. He is genuinely a 20% better player this year than last year or any other season he's played. More creative, far less fumbly, great tackling pressure. And that's without my being able to see all that unrewarded off-camera running that I'm told he does.

Even more impressed with Freijah. He just slots so smoothly into the backline. Great composure and vision. Good kick. Good decision making. Good positioning and anticipation. It was very noticeable that the commentatoes hardly ever called his name, probably because they are too lazy to try to analyse some of the lesser known lights in the game. Also Freijah is not flamboyant so he goes under the radar and doesn't get talked about like say a Nic Watson. For this reason he might struggle to even get the RS nomination which he richly deserves. (It's been turned into such a dodgy award. Just another AFL clanger.) Also has anybody else noted how he has a slightly stooped posture, a little like Michael Tuck? There aren't many action images of Tuck so this is about the best I could find ...
View attachment 2036390 View attachment 2036393
It didn't seem to hurt Tuck's career. If Freijah turns out anywhere near as good as him (and he might) we have a gem.

Speaking of RS nominations, and not being flashy, I wonder if Sanders is going to get one. He played another solid game but they rarely give a nomination for even a string of solid games. Anyway Sanders has been looking more relaxed and comfortable in recent weeks. I'm predicting he'll play even better games before the year is out.

Bramble is another who has steadily improved as the year has progressed. He had another good game on Saturday and was not far off getting a vote from me. This progress of players we'd often regard as our "bottom six" (or close to it) has a fair bit to do with our improved form over the last couple of months. Players like Bramble, Freijah, Vandermeer, Duryea, Lobb, Gallagher, Harmes and Garcia. Even Baker. There's more belief and confidence in each other so they are playing better as a team. That was a feature of how we played in 2016.

Final point. I couldn't close without a word of contempt for the dumb North fans who have probably closed every quarter the side has played this year with a chorus of boos directed at the umpires, the opposition or any scapegoat they can find. I thought the umpiring was pretty reasonable for most of the game (I haven't been able to say that very much recently) but we really got the rough end of the deal in that final quarter. Norfies wouldn't have seen that though, or been able to accept it if they had. I know a few nice intelligent people who are North fans, but collectively they don't seem like a very likeable or clever bunch do they?
Click to expand...
Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.
 
Mutt said:
Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you sat Mutt, crowd was spread out in our vicinity, only a few insufferable North types making much noise.

But the collective whingeing and booing from the city side just went on and on, all game. Some of the ruckus for contests that didn't merit a free either way was laughable, but not nearly as laughable as the over-reactions when Weightman gained any of his possessions. Even from L3, we could see people out of their seats on L1 gesticulating (and presumably venting vitriol at him). I'd imagine it's just water off a duck's back to Cody.
 
In defence of North fans, the average fan that has stuck around in the last few years would concentrate the weird types as a proportion of the entre fanbase, rather than others that have already on with non-football elements of their life (even I personally know a couple of North fans who are more general AFL fans than they are hardcore support-my-team-every-week, they'll watch the Friday night game or whatever but not work their personal life around later in the week to watch the North game).

There's tens of thousands of nominal North fans out there that have latent support and just haven't engaged with the last few years that we would think of as being 'normal fans' (even if we would also criticise them for being bandwagoners).
 
Mutt said:
Nice analysis, as always, dogwatch.

To add to your observation about Norfies, they have a massive persecution complex. Everything and everyone conspires to deny them victories and glory. Many of the North fans around me were simply insufferable throughout the game, in a way that I've rarely encountered, even with Carlton flogs.

Watching North games is only bearable because we have belted them most of the time since their now-long-forgotten heyday late last century.
Click to expand...
Just have a look on the North board at their reaction to Bevo's comments last night. It's endemic across the supporter base.

Everyone else is always at fault but North.
 
bobs head soup said:
Reckon Libba's hard contest and negation of LDU was his biggest impact on the match. Suspect he hurt a lot of Norf's plans, Clarkson probably gave him 1 vote.
Click to expand...
It's only one out of the two coaches giving one vote among five players that we still don't really know how much time or application or the method or timing that the coaches give the votes - I would certainly think that they spend less time on it than the Brownlow votes, for example. It's not that big a deal! I've certainly seen more perplexing Ching votes, too.
 

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Sentinel said:
Just have a look on the North board at their reaction to Bevo's comments last night. It's endemic across the supporter base.

Everyone else is always at fault but North.
Click to expand...
They're complaining about the fact part of the compensation package might be taken away if they improve too much, which apart from being ungrateful misses the entire point of why they're being assisted in the first place.

They're getting the additional assistance package because they're so bad for so long, that it's an additional drag on the league. If this was a league with private owners, private money would be taking a hit, so they'd let them bleed. On the other hand, all clubs and the league are non-profit, and the league itself conceptually is just a manifestation of the clubs banding together. Therefore, North's failure is a financial drag on every other club and the code as a whole in a different way than the tanking 76ers were a drag on nothing but their owners' pocket money. Their assistance package is to only get them to a point where they're not so inept that other clubs are effectively covering for them in the growth of the sport and the league as a whole. Once they stop being a drag (while maybe still being a bad team), the other mechanisms of the draft and salary cap can take over, in the interests of sporting fairness.
 
threenewpadlocks said:
They're complaining about the fact part of the compensation package might be taken away if they improve too much, which apart from being ungrateful misses the entire point of why they're being assisted in the first place.

They're getting the additional assistance package because they're so bad for so long, that it's an additional drag on the league. If this was a league with private owners, private money would be taking a hit, so they'd let them bleed. On the other hand, all clubs and the league are non-profit, and the league itself conceptually is just a manifestation of the clubs banding together. Therefore, North's failure is a financial drag on every other club and the code as a whole in a different way than the tanking 76ers were a drag on nothing but their owners' pocket money. Their assistance package is to only get them to a point where they're not so inept that other clubs are effectively covering for them in the growth of the sport and the league as a whole. Once they stop being a drag (while maybe still being a bad team), the other mechanisms of the draft and salary cap can take over, in the interests of sporting fairness.
Click to expand...

They also immediately traded out the 2024 draft picks they were given last year, which had the condition that they could be re-assessed based on 2024 performance. Got rid of them before there was any chance of them being taken away, which makes that re-assessment stipulation a bit rubbish.
 
bobs head soup said:
Reckon Libba's hard contest and negation of LDU was his biggest impact on the match. Suspect he hurt a lot of Norf's plans, Clarkson probably gave him 1 vote.
Click to expand...

Yeah either way one of the coaches recognised his impact that us supporters often miss. Selfless acts to help the team win > stats.
 
Sanders statistically stacks up pretty nicely with year one Liberatore, especially when you consider him being subbed on/off a couple of times and running at 10% less TOG.
 
Libbaaaa said:
Sam Darcy has no right to be so clean at his feet for a man of his size.
Click to expand...

Seems to tick all the boxes as a tall KPF at a young age. In 5 years time he’ll either be an AA CHF/FF or bust.
 
geoffjennings79 said:
Not sure where you sat Mutt, crowd was spread out in our vicinity, only a few insufferable North types making much noise.

But the collective whingeing and booing from the city side just went on and on, all game. Some of the ruckus for contests that didn't merit a free either way was laughable, but not nearly as laughable as the over-reactions when Weightman gained any of his possessions. Even from L3, we could see people out of their seats on L1 gesticulating (and presumably venting vitriol at him). I'd imagine it's just water off a duck's back to Cody.
Click to expand...
We sat in aisle 41, second level in an area that was primarily North supporters.
 
Wardlaw, LDU, Sheezel, McKercher, Comben, Xerri, Curtis and Larkey are good to very good. Duursma might be one day. Zurhaar, Scott, Logue and Simpkin are solid role players.

They have a few other kids that might or might not be role players one day.

That’s it really.

They’re still rolling out a raft of mature cloggers like McDonald, Corr, Shiels, Tucker, Stephenson, Stephens, Fisher, Pink, Teakle and Taylor.

Their list remains pretty grim.
 
BrisDog said:
He is quite slow unfortunately - no chasing down blokes for Sanders.
Click to expand...

I’m hoping it’ll be less of an issue when he’s a full time mid. As long as we have other mids like Richards around him. He’s just not a flanker or wingman and was always going to be a square peg in a round hole for a couple of years. If he can become an elite clearance winner and stoppage defender it’ll offset his lack of wheels.
 
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